Sunday, February 16, 2014

Baby Food Recipes {6 Months Old)

1 Month of Baby Food

{6 Months Old}

Lilly Belle has already had quite a few fruits & veggies so because of that I am able to start mixing them together for her. If your baby has not started solids yet, make sure to stay with each food by themselves for a few days before trying anything new. This is to make sure your child does not have any specific food allergies.

For 1 month of food, I only spent about $20.00.

It would have been less if I hadn't shopped at Target and if I hadn't purchased any pre-cut food.

Butternut Squash $2.99

Bag of Organic Carrots $1.09

Zucchini $1.49

2 Avocados $2.98

Pumpkin $1.89

5 Fuji Apples $3.95

5 Bananas $.90

Frozen Peas $2.99

Frozen Mango $3.29

TOTAL = $21.57

I will feed Lilly 1/2 a container for breakfast and 1/2 of another for lunch. For dinner, I will give her 1/2 of a container mixed with rice cereal to fill her up before bed (I keep hoping this will give me a night of sleep lol...no luck so far) ;) Without having time to get to the carrots or peas, I was able to make Lilly Belle 24 containers of puree today!

This was a lot cheaper than buying organic baby food. And also, have you ever seen a picture of fresh babyhood next to a container or jarred food? The difference in color just isn't right. Don't get me wrong...Lilly has been chowing down on Gerber prior to me making all of these lol so I'm not judging!

After lots of research, I decided the best storage solution for us at this time was to use Glad Mini Round BPA-Free storage containers. I purchased 4 packs of 8 at $3.49 each ($13.96) and I can reuse these all throughout her eating purees and can then use them for her snacks as she gets older. And...one day I'm sure I will be doing this all over again :) They are okay in both the freezer and dishwasher. Works for me!

I used my last bag of pumped breast milk throughout my cooking shenanigans today. It was frozen when I took it out and each time I threw something in the blender, I poured whatever was thawed right on in. One day (in my dreams) when I'm lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom, I will have tons of pumped milk and would have used all breast milk instead of water in my purees. But, for now, for this month, it did feel good to know there was a little in each blend even if sometimes it was just a few drops lol.

Lilly went down for her nap and I got to work prepping all the food for the blender.

Blend #1: Avocado & Banana

-Cut your banana into slices

-Cube your avocado (Matt and I like to score our avocado halves into cubes before we peel the skin off as it is then really easy to peel and you can divide it up easier)

-You can use as much as you would like depending on how much you want to make. Use your judgement and put equal parts of each in the blender. You will need liquid for this as I found this blend to be super mushy; almost sticky.

It was really good! I tried to get Matt to try some but because there was about a tsp of breast milk in it, he refused lol.

Blend #2: Avocado & Pear

-Cube your avocado just as you did for blend #1

-I used Gerber Organic Pear for this just because we had it. It was out on the counter and I thought it might be yummy so I went for it.

(Lilly Belle ended up having this for lunch and gobbled it right up!)

Such a pretty color green. I love how fresh it all looks.

I peeled and chopped the apples. It is okay if you leave a little skin on. Not a ton, but some is okay. It is good for them as long as there are no chunks your baby could choke on if you didn't blend well enough.

I baked my apples in a little roasting pan for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. I did not put anything other than the apples in the pan. It worked perfectly to get them soft enough to blend.

Lilly has not had zucchini yet, so I decided to just buy one for her to try alone.

Zucchini Puree

-Cut your zucchini into slices and then quarters

-Boil water (just enough to cover the zucchini)

-Once boiling, put the zucchini in the water and cook until soft

-Blend (you won't need to add water as it is already watery, you can if you'd like to though)

**Be careful with the blender as the zucchini is super hot (boiling) and could burn you if you are not careful.

-Once blended, be sure to not put into the freezer until it has cooled down as it is not good to put hot food into the freezer/refrigerator.

Mango Puree

-I used one bag of frozen mango chunks that are meant for smoothies

-I added a bit of water just to get the blender going

Yum!! I love mango. I craved it like mad when I was pregnant and I still love it.

Blend #3: Banana & Mango

- Add equal parts mango chunks and banana slices into your blender

-Add water until it gets to the smooth consistency you prefer

-Enjoy. I was about to pour myself a glass ;) Girlfriend is going to love this. I'm really excited about all of this!

For a few of my recipes today I decided to add the rice cereal right in. When I make rice cereal, I just pour the rice cereal into a bowl and add formula until it's the consistency I like for Lilly. I would prefer to use breast milk but again...my schedule is dumb and sadly (very sadly) pumping is no longer a part of my life. I cringe pouring that formula in, but I know she'll survive ;)

-Blend until smooth. Add water to get to your preferred consistency. You probably won't have to add much because squash is already pretty watery.

**Be careful again with blending hot food**

Blend #4: Apples & Bananas

(And cue the Barney song...)

-Add equal parts banana slices & your baked apples to the blender

-You'll need to add some water for this one as it didn't get smooth alone

Classic.

(I could have gotten this one smoother but I got impatient with the blender.)

Blend #5: Apple & Avocado

-Half of an avocado & equal amount of apples

-Add water until smooth

*I also added banana to this and made an Apple, Avocado & Banana blend. Mmmm!

Feels like it should be September on this one.

Blend #6: Apple & Butternut Squash

-Equal parts baked apple and cooked butternut squash

-Add water until smooth like baby food :)

Once all your food is prepped, the thing that takes the longest is washing the blender out in between. Other than that, they're all so easy! I made sure to wash everything so well just because a few of these foods, Lilly hasn't tried yet and I want to be careful with allergies.

I tried a spoon of this one and ended up making a ton. It was delicious!

Then I got out my pumpkin! I love everything pumpkin :)

Blend #7: Banana & Pumpkin

-Equal parts banana slices & pumpkin puree

-Add water (or breast milk) until smooth

Then my little taste tester woke up from her nap and she got to eat the avocado & pear blend.

Safe to say she loved it...

She loves when I let her play with her spoon when she's done. It is fun to let her get dirty & experiment and learn with her food :)

Once she woke up, I never got to do anything with the peas or carrots. I'm going to make those tonight. I would have liked to mix the carrots and apples together. Next time :)

A few more mixes that I made that I do not have photos of are:

-Pumpkin & Apple

-Pumpkin & Butternut Squash

-Mango & Apple

I loved doing this for Lilly. I told Matt it made me just as happy as when I nurse her. I love knowing where her food is coming from and it feels good that I took time to do this for her. A lot of love went into her meals this month. I cannot wait for her to try them all!

TIPS:

-Don't be afraid to add water to make the puree smooth (we have the okay from our pediatrician to give LB water so I went for it)

-Use Avery file folder labels to label each container. The stuck so well even when wet. They were just $3 at Fred Meyer and I have a pack of over 200.

-Have everything clean and ready before you begin. Pre-chop, cut and peel everything first. It helped so much to just fly through the blending process!

-Put some music on and enjoy some mommy time pouring love into your sweet baby's food!

Those containers are really cute! I make all of Olivers food too but freeze the puree in ice cube trays. Then put them in bags. I take out cubes and mix different things together depending on what I want him to eat that meal.

I tried that too the last time I made her food. I found they didn't freeze as well as these containers though. And these were easier for me to store :) I like how pretty the cubes look though! I tried hard to make that work for us.